Author: Simon

4/2/2012 Brew

Random Brew Recipe:  100g coffee / 1 kg water, 3 minute brew time.

Brew Method: Aeropress
Actual Recipe: 20g coffee, 200g water at 198F
Coffee: Crema Coffee  El Salvador Finca Suiza

Notes notes notes: WHOA 100g per kg! We’re into triple digit doses, folks.

This is a big big dose and a longer brew time than I’d usually go for with the Aeropress – but the Aeropress is a mystery, and its ways can be strange and interesting. Huge thanks to our barista Kate who brought this coffee back from her recent tour, from a shop called Crema (a “brewtique,” continuing coffee’s long love affair with punnery), down in Nashville.

First, even with kind of out-there parameters, this coffee is solid. I am excited to try it again closer to where I think it will shine, but even at almost twice the coffee I’d usually use, this was no joke. It was the kind of coffee that had folks curious – in a good way – as the aroma hung around the grinder. Monster citrus right up front, toeing that sour line but not quite crossing it. It had the kind of quick, aggressive body I associate with underextraction, but it still pulled it off. I finished the cup. It was a really, really nice brew, hoenstly more enjoyable than I anticipated when I pulled up the RBG.

If nothing else, this random brew has proved 1.) Nashville is no joke and 2.) Good coffees are good even when brewed out of spec – if there even is a spec! I can’t wait to try it tomorrow.

I’d give it a 9/10.

Roasters Guild Coffees of the Year 2012

The RG has announced their Coffees of the Year for 2012!

Two things jump out to me as surprising:

1.) Three of these coffees are from Hawaii and
2.) None of these coffees scored over an 89

First: huge congrats to Hawaiian coffee growers. 2011-12 has been a great year for them – right on the tail of Pete Licata winning the USBC, this is very good news. I had unfortunately overlooked Hawaiian coffee as a high level competitor on the specialty scene, and it is kind of nice to see them recognized. It’s probably time for me (and the rest of us!) to take another look. I think a trip to the islands is in order!

Second: What does it say about our scoring system that the winning coffees in this competition failed to break 90? It looks from the RG announcement that the scoring was done at least in part by Q-Graders, so I’m assuming that they used the SCAA form, which I am somewhat familiar with. It strikes me as surprising that a full half of the field is right around 86. With the bright line between specialty and non-specialty falling at 80 points, that 6 point spread between ‘non-specialty’ and ‘coffee of the year’ must house an awful lot of beans.

3/29/2012 Brew

Random Brew Recipe:  75g coffee / 1 kg water, 5 minute brew time.

Brew Method: French Press
Actual Recipe: 37g coffee, 500g water at 198F
Coffee: New Harvest Coffee Roasters’ Rwanda Coko Coop

Notes notes notes: I’ve gotten to know this coffee pretty well over the last little while; at its very best it presents a delicate, floral sweetness, really reminiscent of melon or peach, with a fairly creamy mouthfeel and out-of-this-world aromatics.

At these parameters, the taste experience became shorter and more tart, when hot it was like an underripe peach, as it cooled it really more resembled that first bite of a grapefruit: tart and tangy. It was surprisingly aggressive in its acidity, given both the press pot and the regularly mellow nature of the Coko. I don’t think it would be for everyone; it’s a little like an espresso brightness bomb – almost too big. But I kind of liked to see this side of the coffee.

I’d give it a 7/10.

3/28/2012 Brew

Random Brew Recipe:  77g coffee / 1 kg water, 2 minute brew time.

Brew Method: French Press
Actual Recipe: 77g coffee, 1000g water at 198F
Coffee: New Harvest Coffee Roasters’ Whisper Espresso

Notes notes notes: Boom! This coffee hit hard. Even with the reduced brew time, the upped dosage of a blend intended for espresso via a French Press was a bold choice. It was a hearty cup for sure, but rather than the sweetness and creamy body of the espresso, it was a punch of underextracted sourpatch kids.

It’s probably too obvious to say, but I’m surprised at how different coffees are more or less flexible across random parameters. As an espresso, Whisper is incredibly forgiving, offering interesting notes through brew ratios of 1:1 – 1:1.5,  all the way up to 1:2 sometimes. I’ve had this coffee in drip form and really enjoyed it. Anecdotally, my own preferences seem to lean toward acceptance of subtle and delicate tastes (what some might call weak or underdeveloped?) but a bit put off by intense ristretto or sour flavors.

The Random Brew Generator has much to teach, it would seem!

I’d give the brew a 6/10. Just didn’t do it for me.

Hopedale, MA tomorrow for Q retakes!

The Only 3 Rules

This is a story that I tell during my Introduction to Coffee class that all of our certified baristi have to take. It’s the first of four required classes, and it is mostly me (or one of our Educators) pointing at a map, some writing on a white board, and a little explaining how solenoids work. We go over a few required tidbits of knowledge, and one of these is something we’ve come to call The Only 3 Rules. This story is true!

*  *  *

Not long ago, inexplicably, the man who has been called (by me) the Socrates of Specialty Coffee, Gwilym Davies, came to Foxboro Massachusetts. Gwilym runs a few coffee bars in London, and was at the time the departing World Barista Champion. He was doing a machine demonstration, and a few of us trekked up from Providence to see it, and meet the man himself. Thanks to the ever-astounding charisma of Gerra Harrigan, he agreed to come have a beer with us.

As you might imagine, I was pretty excited. GD is, and remains, a serious inspiration.

So, as folks will, we all had a few beers and chatted and eventually talk turned to our natural common ground: coffee. Making coffee. Thinking about coffee. We discussed the role that dogma, and a dogmatic approach to preparation, can take in day-to-day operations behind an espresso bar, and GD said something that struck me as very significant. He said that he really only follows three rules anymore. Here is what he said you have to do, to make good coffee:

1.) You have to taste your coffee
2.) You have to clean your machine

and

3.) You have to care.